Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2005, pp. 87--102 Can Psychology Help Save the World? A Model for Conservation Psychology Susan Clayton ∗ The College of Wooster Amara Brook The University of Michigan Conservation psychology is defined as psychological research oriented toward understanding why people help or hurt the natural environment and promoting environmentally sustainable practices (Saunders, 2003). Despite a growing body of research, the field is largely unfamiliar to many psychologists and to those working in the environmental field. Here we make a case for the importance of conservation psychology and describe a model for the social psychology of conservation behavior that focuses on situational context, existing schemas, and personal motives. We hope this model will be useful for policymakers and will prompt new psychological research on the topic of conservation. Conservation psychology is a relatively new field of research, which has the dual aim of understanding why people behave in ways that help or hurt the natu- ral environment and promoting behavior that protects it (Saunders, 2003; Winter, 2004). Topics that could be considered to fall within conservation psychology include studies of conservation behaviors such as recycling (e.g., Geller, 1992; McKenzie-Mohr & Oskamp, 1995; Oskamp, 2002); of the human-animal rela- tionship (e.g. Myers, 1998; Vining, 2003); about environment and identity (e.g., Clayton & Opotow, 2003a; Schultz, 2002); on environmental education and social- ization (Chawla, 1999; Kals & Ittner, 2003); on environmental attitudes (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000); and on environmental conflict (Opotow & Brook, 2003; Samuelson, Peterson, & Putnam, 2003). Conservation psychology research aims to understand why people act in environmentally sustainable or ∗ Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Susan Clayton, Department of Psychology, 930 College Mall, Wooster, OH 44691 [e-mail: sclayton@wooster.edu]. 87 C  2005 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues